


sound as stone

by starknjarvis



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Tarsus IV, The general post-tarsus trauma, eating issues, gen - Freeform, outside pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-19 22:50:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17010657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starknjarvis/pseuds/starknjarvis
Summary: The three people who figured out that Jim was on Tarsus IV.





	1. Bones

McCoy doesn’t notice that he’s become friends with Jim until it’s way too late.

McCoy is blind-drunk the first time they meet, so focused on vomiting as little as possible that he barely notices the bruised kid chattering in the seat beside him. He reluctantly accepts the distraction, but his thoughts are still in Georgia. Not with Jocelyn, who took the damn state away from him, but with Joanna, his daughter. Will she miss him? Will she resent that he left? Or will she be grateful, like her mother, to not have McCoy in her life?

It takes him a week to realize that Jim isn’t going away.

With Jim’s command track and McCoy’s accelerated medical courses, they only overlap for one class—the Starfleet introductory history and ethics course required for all first years—but Jim just keeps showing up. He’s greeting him in the cafeteria, stopping off to give McCoy an extra fruit cup before he continues his apparent mission to flit by every table in the room. He drags McCoy to dinner one night, insisting that they try the dim sum place around the corner. He’s at the bar beside McCoy off-campus, matching him shot for shot without seeming to notice or care that McCoy isn’t playing the game.

It’s like those videos of people doing serious exercises while a nearby dog bounces around and mimics them, glancing sideways every few moments for approval.

When McCoy starts to come out of his depressed haze, he looks at Jim in bafflement. “What are you doing, kid?”

Jim looks up from a mouthful of noodles. “Eating?” Jim says, as though McCoy is the strange one here.

McCoy just grunts and goes back to his own food.

Now that he’s paying attention, it’s as though a heavy drape has been pulled back from a window. It’s shocking that he didn’t fail his first few weeks of courses, though he thinks maybe those nights where Jim prodded him to study together weren’t _just_ for Jim’s benefit.

Though Jim may have helped him, it doesn’t seem as though that makes McCoy special.

Jim seems to be everywhere at once. He’s flirting with cute males and female of every species, leaning forward on the bar and twisting his hips like he’s in a commercial for blue jeans. He’s antagonizing pompous professors and every other authority figure he crosses paths with, mocking them to their faces and then acing every exam they throw at him. He helps people all the time, bending over backward to help near-strangers move dorm rooms, or study for their exams, or find their way around campus.

He’s difficult to get a grasp on. Bold and brash and cocky, but brilliant and empathetic and curious. What did he say that Pike had called him during his informal recruitment? A ‘genius-level repeat-offender?’ Jim has too much energy, and not enough direction, even here at Starfleet.

Though Jim is everything to everyone, it doesn’t seem as though anyone is looking out for him in return. All those friends who greet him in the halls, and none of them seem to have any better idea of who Jim Kirk really is than McCoy does.

Maybe it’s none of McCoy’s business. Maybe he shouldn’t be asking more of the kid than he’s offering. Look where McCoy’s loyalty had gotten him—divorced and alone on the west coast. He shouldn’t be feeling the stirring of…whatever he’s feeling toward this unmanaged nuclear warhead of a cadet.

#

The first time Jim nearly kills himself at Starfleet, it’s in the cafeteria.

Jim is doing his usual butterfly routine. He’s eating as he walks, an open fruit cup and fork in hand and a sandwich tucked under his elbow. “Heya, Bones,” he greets as he passes by. Ah, yes, that ridiculous nickname. McCoy honestly isn’t sure whether Jim really knows his actual name, or if he’s just very dedicated to his nicknames. “How are you doing this fine day?”

“It’s raining,” McCoy grumbles. He’s at his table alone, poring over his course notes. You’d think that being a medical doctor already would make these Starfleet classes seem like a joke, but you don’t encounter much xenobio in Georgia.

Jim takes a bite from the fruit cup. “We’re in San Francisco, Bones. It’s always raining.”

“So the days are never fine,” McCoy says.

“That seems like a terrible way to look at…” Jim clears his throat. “At…” He coughs, wheezes, and then the fruit cup falls to the tile floor.

“Kirk?” McCoy says, torn between concern and suspicion.

Jim grabs his throat, and his face is growing mottled with purple splotches. And, yep, that’s an allergic reaction if McCoy has ever seen one.

While Starfleet’s finest cadets panic around them, McCoy launches out of his seat and helps lower Jim onto the ground, narrowing avoiding the spilled syrup and fruit chunks.

Jim waves toward his uniform pocket, and McCoy pulls out a compact hypo. Without stopping to think, McCoy jabs it into Jim’s neck and compresses the trigger. .3 milligrams of epinephrine shoot into the idiot’s neck, lacing his veins with adrenaline and helping his body beat back the reaction.

Finally regaining the ability to breathe, Jim wheezes and gasps. When his breathing is finally under control, he blinks up at McCoy. “My hero,” he says, and then moves to stand.

“And just where do you think you’re going? That was an extreme allergic reaction.”

“And you saved me,” Jim says. “Problem solved.”

“Oh, no,” McCoy says. Jim seems determined to stand, so McCoy helps him to his feet and hooks Jim’s arm around his shoulders. “You’re not just walking away like this. You’re coming to medical. Now.”

“I have class, Bones,” Jim says, rubbing at his throat.

“I don’t care, Jim,” McCoy drawls.

#

In the end, McCoy has to practically drag Jim to the medical wing of the Academy. McCoy spends half his time in classes and half on rotation seeing patients, so he has an examination room he can commandeer to look over the still-protesting Jim.

Once he uses a tricorder to make sure there aren’t any lingering effects from the attack, McCoy pulls up Jim’s official medical chart. Jim starts to stand from the bed, but McCoy pushes him back down with one hand, not looking up from the data.

“Is this a medical chart or an encyclopedia?” McCoy mutters.

“You’re not my doctor,” Jim shoots back.

“According to this, you don’t have one on this coast yet. You haven’t been to a doctor since… Jesus, kid, it’s been years. How did you even get on campus? You could have been carrying an Altairian death virus.”

“They don’t nag last-minute recruits about vaccines. I knew I was clean.”

McCoy shakes his head. “Maybe you don’t have any diseases, but with a chart like this, you should have a physician on hand. Jesus, kid, if you have this many allergies, you really shouldn’t be eating whatever’s put in front of you,” Bones says, scrolling through the list on his PADD. “You know the mixed fruit here is a grab-bag.”

“The lady at the counter gave it to me for free,” Jim says. “She was flirting. I mean, I was flirting first, but it was working.”

“So you just _ate it_?”

“What was I supposed to do?”

“Maybe check the ingredients? Or just say thank you to the nice lady and throw it away? I mean, look at this. You’re allergic to pears. You know how often the syrup in fruit cups comes from pear juice?”

“No?”

“At least you had the hypo on you. Do you have another to replace that one?”

“My prescription might be out…” Jim says thoughtfully, like it’s not a matter of life and death.

“I’m writing you a new one.”

“Can you do that?”

“I’ve just assigned myself as your new Primary Care physician,” McCoy tells him. “I can do whatever I want, and you clearly qualify for it. Keep it on you at all times.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jim says. “I survived this long without you, you know.”

“Jesus only knows how,” McCoy mutters.

#

That night at dinner, McCoy pulls out his tricorder and scans the dish Jim has just been handed by the wait staff. They don’t always get dinner together, but Jim seems eager to even the score between them after the earlier disaster.

“What are you doing?” Jim asks, stopping halfway through snapping his chopsticks and leaving them a gnarled, splintered mess.

“Making sure you’re not going to poison yourself again.”

Jim rolls his eyes. “What, are you going to follow me around from now on?”

“If I have to.”

Jim puts down the chopsticks. “Seriously, Bones. I don’t need taking care of. This is ridiculous. You’re not my babysitter.”

“Feels like it,” McCoy mutters. “The noodles are safe.”

“Thanks,” Jim bites out sarcastically. “Seriously, this is above and beyond even for a Starfleet doctor. Do you follow around all your patients to make sure they don’t kill themselves? Do they pay you extra for this?”

You made sure that I wasn’t flunking out the first few weeks of the Academy, McCoy doesn’t say. You made sure I wasn’t drinking alone, even when I wanted to be. “I’m your friend, you backwater hick,” McCoy says. “If I don’t look out for your dumb ass, who will?”

“Oh,” Jim says, seeming to lose the momentum of his annoyance.

“Yeah, ‘oh,’” McCoy says. “Shut up and eat your noodles.”

#

After that night, Jim goes from being a fly that occasionally buzzes around McCoy to being an absolute barnacle. Jim doesn’t stop spending time with other cadets, couldn’t stop flirting with every cute person or challenging every authority figure if he tried, but he always ends up back with McCoy.

If Jim hadn’t already lamented about McCoy being ‘tragically straight,’ McCoy might have thought he was being wooed.

Jim brings him coffee in the mornings, chats with him over lunch, drags him to the library to study at all hours, and brings him barhopping across town at night. More than that, he starts to see Jim the rare times that he’s _quiet_. The nights he’s drained from taking more courses than any other student in their year, the nights he seems haunted by ghosts he can’t talk about, the nights he’s wide-eyed and jittery until four in the morning. A wall has fallen between them, and Jim has stopped _performing_ all the time.

McCoy grumbles constantly about his new shadow, but Jim doesn’t take it personally. Somehow, he seems able to look straight through McCoy’s blustering and see that, maybe, McCoy appreciates the friendship.

So when they’re picking housing for second year, Jim doesn’t even raise an eyebrow when McCoy sends him the roommate request form and a list of his dorm preferences.

Living with Jim isn’t the complete nightmare McCoy half-expects it to be. Though he hooks up with people all around campus, he never brings them back to their shared room, and never spends the night out. He’s always back by two, and that’s when he goes out at all. Now that they’re living together, they often skip the bars altogether in favor of splitting a bottle of bourbon on their couch.

It’s still a little bit of a nightmare, of course. It’s Jim Kirk, after all.

Jim has no sense of modesty, and McCoy has seen him in the altogether at least five times more than he would have ever wanted.

Though he lives with a doctor, Jim is still practically allergic to seeking medical attention, even when he needs it. McCoy ends up bringing a dermal regenerator back to their dorm after Jim gets into a brawl off-campus and refuses to come to medical to get his bloodied knuckles repaired.

Those quirks are predictable. Others are more surprising.

Jim Kirk hides food everywhere.

When McCoy feels something crinkle when he sits on the couch and he lifts the cushion to find a neat row of granola bars, he thinks he’s losing his mind. What kind of goddamn weird prank _is_ this? There were bags of pretzels under the sink by the drain cleaner, shitty nutri-packs tucked inside the guitar case Jim never actually opened, and now this.

“Jim!” he calls, folding his arms.

Jim practically falls out of his room. He’s been trained to respond to that tone in McCoy’s voice. It’s something McCoy takes great pride in.

He sees what McCoy has found and freezes. For a moment, his face doesn’t have the shit-eating grin he gets when he’s pulled one over on McCoy, or the breezy ease when he’s doing something stupid that no one’s ever stopped him from doing before—it’s fear.

McCoy rethinks the rant he’d been about to deliver about roaches and being generally annoying, and starts to wonder if there isn’t more to all this. Jim isn’t exactly an open book about his past, but McCoy has noticed that he doesn’t go home for any of the Academy holidays. It’s obvious from even his vague references that his childhood couldn’t be considered ‘good’ by any standard.

In a different light, this hoarding might not look so much like a prank as a defense mechanism, a safety blanket for a kid who once didn’t trust the people in charge of feeding him. It’s a symptom McCoy has seen before in young patients that were an hour away from getting a visit from CPS.

Jim recovers quickly, but it doesn’t erase what McCoy saw.

“I see you’ve found my midnight snacks,” Jim says, leaning against his doorframe. “Sometimes you just don’t have the energy to get all the way to the kitchen, you know?”

“I don’t care about that. I know I’ve told you about how I feel about oatmeal raisin in my house,” McCoy says, all bluster. He lifts one of the bars. “Really, Jim? You know this is an abomination. I’m a doctor, and even I won’t encourage this. Next time, at least go with the chocolate kind.” He jabs a quick finger at the kid. “No peanuts.”

Jim relaxes slightly, his smile becoming a touch more real. “I haven’t forgotten my own peanut allergy, Bones,” he says. “I’ll get the better kind next time.”

“See that you do,” McCoy grumbles, and shoos him back to his room.

#

As Jim’s GP, McCoy has access to all of Jim’s records, stretching back to the birth certificate that lists his place of birth as ‘USS Kelvin – Escape Pod.’ Before their third year, while McCoy is confirming that Jim is up-to-date on all of his vaccines, he finds a discrepancy.

In 2248, there was a planet-wide distribution of an updated avian flu vaccine. Every child under the age of eighteen on planet at the time would have been given the shot. McCoy himself had just aged out of it, but he had already been planning to pursue his medical career at the time and had done a paper on the effort.

But Jim’s medical records are blank for that entire year.

Not just blank in that Jim had managed to avoid doctors—blank of any sort of notes. Even though Jim’s absent mother and neglectful stepfather didn’t enforce regular visits to the doctor, Jim’s four-month epinephrine hypo prescription was ongoing from the time his allergies had been discovered at age eight. During 2248, no prescriptions were filled.

McCoy assumes that there’s a computer error, but he goes back to the file again the next day. Thinking about it overnight, he’s come to realize there are two options—either it really was a glitch in the system… or someone tampered with the files. And being Jim’s friend, McCoy knows which option he’d put his money on.

If it was Jim, it’s a clumsier job than the hacks he’s seen from the kid since they met. Jim handles code as easily as he does the controls of his flight sims, dancing through data that’s incomprehensible to McCoy. Last year, when McCoy was desperate for a seat in Professor Raine’s lecture, Jim had slipped into the system to help him. When McCoy had berated him for giving him the spot and kicking some other poor sap out of the class, Jim had explained that he hadn’t kicked anyone else out—he’d just altered the system to believe there was one more seat available.

Though his personality was that of a bulldozer, he was usually too smart to make his hacking detectable at all unless he was proving a point. This here, in his medical records, was the code equivalent of a sledgehammer. What point had Jim been trying to make? Or had the files been altered years ago, before Jim had learned to wield code like a scalpel?

It nags on McCoy, but he already knows that he’ll only get a deflection if he asks Jim. There are some fights not worth picking. If Jim hid something, it’s probably worth hiding. Jim will tell him if it was important. Eventually.

Won’t he?

#

During their first year of friendship, Jim seems to be drunk as often as he is sober. He’s determined to ace his classes—he’s never met a challenge he can say no to—but he doesn’t really _care_.

As their friendship develops and Jim realizes that he’s actually _good_ at all this, that changes. He goes out less, stays in more. He stabilizes in a way it doesn’t sound like he ever had before Starfleet.

McCoy knows the feeling. After his divorce, he had half-expected to continue crashing and burning right into his grave. He had joined Starfleet after all—if that doesn’t reek of subconscious suicidality, what does?

Instead, they’ve found an anchor in each other. McCoy doesn’t admit it out loud, but he’d be lost without the kid, and he thinks the feeling might be mutual.

That’s why when he comes home to find Jim so drunk that he’s not able to stand up straight at four in the afternoon on a Wednesday, he’s immediately concerned. First, he double-checks the date—they’re far from Jim’s birthday, which is a usual trigger. Jim hasn’t been seeing anyone lately, so he can’t have been dumped. There’s no way he failed his Introductory Klingon course, not which his skill in languages.

“Hey, kid,” he says, helping Jim sit down. “You all right?”

“Me? Fine. Just fine,” Jim says, toasting him with a nearly-empty bottle of gin that McCoy takes from his loose grip. Jim is still staring in confusion at his own empty hand when McCoy returns a minute later with a replacement glass of water.

“What happened, Jim?” McCoy asks.

Jim just shakes his head. “Absolutely nothing,” he says, like it’s a private joke, and then slumps back onto the couch.

“Drink that water and let’s get you to bed,” McCoy instructs. He half-drags, half-carries Jim to his bed, forces another glass of water on him, and then covers him with his blankets.

“Bones?” Jim asks blearily before McCoy can make his exit. “Will this ever get easier?”

McCoy isn’t one for false platitudes, but he can’t help saying, “Yeah, Jim. It will.”

Back out in the living room, McCoy spots Jim’s PADD lying on the table, still open. He glances back at the bedroom, and then picks it up. He expects to find a message, maybe from Jim’s absent mother or, hell, some pregnant one-night-stand.

Instead, the PADD is pulled up to a word processor. At the top of the page, Jim has pasted the assignment, and he seems to have gotten only two sentences into his paper before giving up and going on his bender.

_Ethics in Leadership: COMM 206_

_Professor Jon Yengle_

_Leadership involves making difficult decisions, and balancing the needs of the many compared with the needs of the few. Over Starfleet history, infamous leaders have made controversial decisions leaning toward either camp.Discuss the pros and cons of the leadership decisions of General Kodos during the Tarsus IV famine, with historical examples._

Jim’s opening line is factual. His second is unfinished.

Bones frowns at the assignment—who dropped this professor on his head as a baby? Having students discuss the merits of a massacre. Honestly. Next they’d be debating the genocide on Retaine VII, or the European Holocaust.

Bones begins to exit out of the paper to search for the cause of Jim’s distress when part of Jim’s introductory sentence catches his eye.

The famine on Tarsus IV happened during the year 2248.

McCoy knows that year. He’s been puzzling over it for months now. That’s the missing year in Jim’s medical file.

It hits him like an eighteen-wheeler. The pieces slot together, the moment when an optical illusion bounces from one image to another, and it becomes impossible to unsee that the vase is two people, that the old woman is a rabbit. It’s too obvious.

The sloppily-hidden data.

The food hidden in every corner of the dorm.

The way Jim ate whatever was put in front of him, even if it might kill him.

Fuck.

#

“Doctor McCoy, do you know why I asked you to come meet me?” Pike asks, sitting behind his desk. McCoy has seen him give this look at Jim a dozen times, but it’s never been directed at him before. It’s a strange mix of exasperation and affection, buried under a mask of irritation.

“No, sir,” McCoy drawls.

“Professor Yengle came to my office to complain about you this morning,” Pike says.

“Oh, really?” McCoy asks, voice tight and angry.

“He seemed to be under the impression that you were threatening him,” Pike says.

“That cowardly little… Did he tell you that he was assigning his students to write papers _justifying a genocide_? That he was asking them to discuss the merits of massacring half a planet? That he was treating mass-murder like a topic for debate?”

“It came out during the conversation,” Pike says carefully.

“ _And_?”

“I’ve ordered him to alter the assignment. That type of discourse does not belong in Starfleet. Our official stance on the Tarsus IV disaster is one of unequivocal disapproval. Some arguments do not deserve time in the light.”

“Good,” McCoy says, nodding.

Pike watches him quietly for a long moment. Then, he laughs. “Yengle was terrified of you. He seemed sure that you were going to poison him. I knew Kirk was ruthless, but siccing you on his teacher is crueler than I thought even he was capable of.”

McCoy folds his arms. “Jim doesn’t know I did this. And I don’t want him to.”

Pike’s expression stills. “No,” he says softly. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

“Do you know, sir?” McCoy blurts.

Pike taps his fingers on his desk. “Juvenile records are sealed,” he says, which is such a non-answer that it tells McCoy exactly what he wants to know. Pike knows about Jim’s time on Tarsus, and from the clench of his jaw, he’s as angry with Yengle as McCoy is.

McCoy wants to ask more, to see if Pike has more insight on the situation than McCoy has managed to gather, but he can’t sit here and talk about Jim behind his back. “Is Yengle bringing me up on a conduct code violation?” he asks finally.

“I talked him out of it,” Pike says. “I assured him that he didn’t want this issue to be brought to the administration.”

McCoy nods. “Thank you, sir.”

“Dismissed. And McCoy?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Kirk is lucky to have you in his corner.”

#

Now that the issue has been resolved, McCoy leaves Pike’s office and holes up in a bar off-campus for the rest of the day to drink himself into oblivion.

Jim had been on Tarsus IV. McCoy had _studied_ the famine, seen the records of starved, emaciated bodies. How had Jim survived? Lord in heaven, it was no wonder that Jim had been so messed up when they’d first met. How many years had he spent in brawls across the Midwest trying to forget what he’d seen?

Winona Kirk is absent at the best of times. McCoy knows better than to hope that she might have supported Jim during the aftermath. Hell, he’s not even sure she would have come back to Earth for him.

Has anyone tried to help Jim with this? Considering the way the kid butchered his own medical records, he doesn’t even want his doctors to know what he went through. He’s probably never told a soul. Did he think McCoy would treat him differently? Was he afraid of his reaction?

 _Does_ McCoy want to treat him differently? He’s pissed and terrified and upset, but this overwhelming need to make sure the kid is okay isn’t new. He knows better than to think that this makes Jim weak. Hell, Jim is stronger than McCoy had ever imagined.

“How the tables have turned,” Jim declares, sitting on the stool beside McCoy. He’s looking better than he should considering how drunk he had been the night before. Jim has always been able to bounce back from benders quickly.

Apparently he’s had practice bouncing back from things that would destroy another man. Kid. Fuck.

McCoy grunts at him and takes another swig from his drink.

“What’s going on? How long have you been here? Is Joanna okay?” Jim came back with him for the holidays last year, and he had hit it off with McCoy’s daughter like a grease fire.

“She’s fine,” McCoy says shortly, but doesn’t elaborate.

Jim sighs. “You know you’re supposed to invite me to these things.”

McCoy puts down his glass and looks over at his friend. “You think I’d encourage you to drink like that two nights in a row? Your liver and I are going to be fighting it out in twenty years as it is.”

“Only you would think of my internal organs as your personal enemies,” Jim says. “All right, Bones, it’s time to get you home.”

“Don’t wanna.”

“It’s either that, or I’m joining you for the rest of the night,” Jim threatens. When McCoy doesn’t answer, he turns to the bartender. “Okay. Looks like we’re staying. Let me have what he’s—”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” McCoy says. He glares at the bartender. “Ignore that. We’re going home.”

“If you insist,” Jim says lightly, and then lets McCoy lean on him all the way back to their dorm.

As they stumble back into their shared living space, McCoy looks at Jim solemnly. “You know I love you, right, kid?”

“Of course, Bonesy,” Jim says.

McCoy vaguely pats Jim’s face, missing his cheek and ending up stroking his nose. “You’re a good kid.”

“Oh boy, we really need to sober you up,” Jim says.

McCoy just sighs and lets Jim usher him into bed.

In the morning, with his hangover pounding at his temples, he sits at the kitchen table nursing a coffee while Jim eats dry cereal from the box. He watches Jim open up his PADD, read a message, and then practically slump with relief. He blinks rapidly, and then his expression settles like the sea after a storm. Professor Yengle sent out the cancellation, then. Good.

“I’m too hungover for cereal,” McCoy announces. “I want a bagel. Want to come?”

“If you’re buying,” Jim says with a bright grin.

McCoy rolls his eyes. “Don’t push your luck, kid.”


	2. Uhura

Considering how they met, Uhura would have never guessed that she would someday call Jim Kirk her captain.

Jim Kirk is one of the most frustrating people Uhura has ever met. At the bar in Iowa, he’s flirtatious and sloppy. Bantering is fun, but she should have seen then how much of his idiotic attitude is just a front. Who drunkenly forgets about first names, but can recite the dictionary definition of ‘xenolinguistics’ without a second thought?

But when the night ends with Kirk getting his ass kicked by the macho cadets who convinced themselves that she needs their help, she writes him off. Even if he was smart, his recklessness would stop him from achieving anything of note.

Uhura…usually isn’t so wrong.

When she first sees Kirk on campus the next week, she thinks it’s a joke. Somehow, he doesn’t flunk out, though rumor has it that he’s still drinking as heavily as he did the night they met, and is sleeping with every sentient being in the Bay Area.

“Hey, Uhura!” he greets when he passes her on the quad, as though they’ve ever spoken outside of one alcohol-soaked disaster.

“Kirk,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“Sure you don’t want to move to first names?” he calls after her. She shakes her head as she continues walking, feeling her ponytail brush against the shoulders of her uniform.

It’s not until she ends up in Introductory Andorian with him during his second semester that she realizes just how much she’s been underestimating him.

Uhura studied Vulcan, Orion, and a bit of Klingon before she was accepted into Starfleet Academy, and she finds she’s a bit embarrassed to need a 101 level of any language course. Still, with her talent in picking up languages, she expects to top the class with ease. Klingon is one of the hardest languages for a human to master, and Uhura is already making great progress after just a year of study. Andorian is shares half its grammatical rules with Vulcan—who could be better suited for this class than her?

“You all did…pitifully on your quizzes,” Professor Tala says, a few weeks into the semester. “I expected better of you by now. You’ve had nearly a month, and you’re still speaking as though it’s your first day hearing my language. I have to wonder if you’re putting in the time outside of class needed to cement what I’ve spent so long teaching you.”

“This class is impossible,” someone behind Uhura mutters. Not nearly quietly enough—if Uhura can hear her, then Tala’s sharp Andorian ears will have heard it clearly.

Tala’s antennae twitch. “Or perhaps you simply don’t put in the effort,” she says coolly. Uhura winces at the scorn in her voice. “One of you got a perfect 100, so it is clear that the quiz was not the problem.”

Uhura perks up at that, smiling to herself. She’d been worried that she had messed up the conjugation of their three verbs for ‘to be,’ but clearly she should have trusted herself. The rest of the class may have failed, but Uhura knows her languages.

When Tala presses the button for their grades to populate on their PADDs, Uhura blinks at her result. An 88. That’s…not a 100.

“Um,” she says, prepared to ask the professor if there had been a mistake, but someone clears his throat beside her.

She turns and sees Kirk in the seat next to her. He’s been sitting there since the first day of class, smiling smarmily at her and making annoying jokes that always send the class off on a tangent. Tala, a strict disciplinarian, has sent him to detention three times already for disrespect.

When she gives him an expectant look, he tilts his PADD so she can see his screen. 100.

“What?” she hisses.

He shrugs. “You didn’t also get a perfect grade?” he asks, a wide grin on his face.

“We both know she said only person did,” Uhura snaps. “How did you…”

“If you need a study buddy, you know I’m always happy to help,” he says, winking at her.

She narrows her eyes. “Do you already know Andorian?”

“Nope,” he says, popping the ‘p’ obnoxiously.

“Then how—”

“I guess I’m just talented.”

“You…” But she knows he can’t have cheated. They’d taken the quiz in class yesterday, and the only person he could have copied from was Uhura, and he’d done better than her.

Better than _her_. Uhura thought of herself as justifiably proud of her achievements, but humble in general. There were plenty of smart students and teachers at the Academy. She had a Vulcan TA in one class this semester, and she could admit that he was naturally more brilliant than she was—at least in mathematics. But Kirk?

Uhura felt like the world was shifting around her, changing its very foundations.

He seems to be enjoying the dumbstruck look on her face. “Not bad for a hick, right?”

“Kirk, Uhura,” Tala snaps. “If you’re finished with your side conversation, perhaps we can move back into the lesson?”

Kirk holds up a finger. “Thanks, prof. Give us another few seconds.”

Tala’s pale blue skin darkens with anger. “You will be silent now, or you will find yourself in detention yet again. How many more before you are suspended?”

Kirk blinks up at her, his vacant, charming smile in place. “Oh, I’m sorry, professor. You asked a question. I assumed you were just being polite.” His smile grows a millimeter. “I should have known better.”

Uhura leans slightly away from him, as though she can convince Tala retroactively that she hadn’t been involved in this conversation that had started this confrontation.

Tala’s antennae quiver. “One more word, and I’ll be bringing up your behavior with Admiral Pike.”

Kirk shrugs and mimics zipping his mouth closed, easy nonchalance in every facet of his posture.

They stare each other down for a long moment, and then Tala finally turns to the rest of the class. “Now, let’s go over the pluperfect tense. Some of you may struggle with this, as your quiz grades imply you have not learned the simple past tense, but I have a schedule to keep. Catch up by next week, or you’ll lose your place in this course entirely.”

After class, Uhura hurries to catch Kirk in the hallway. He moves at a casual speed, so it’s not hard for her to overtake him even in her heels. “Kirk,” she hisses.

He turns to her, and the crowd of cadets stream around them. “Uhura,” he greets, as though she hadn’t spent the last half-hour of class glaring daggers at him. “What’s up?”

The rant she has been preparing to scold him for dragging her into Tala’s ire feels ridiculous outside the oppressive atmosphere of the classroom. Though Kirk had initiated their conversation, he hadn’t thrown her under the bus when Tala had begun attacking them. Instead, she holds her books in front of her chest and stares at him. Who _is_ this boy?

“What?” he asks again, cautious this time.

“Why do you do that?” she asks finally. “Why antagonize a teacher in a class you’re actually _good_ at?”

“Well, if I did it in a class I was bad at she would just fail me,” Kirk points out.

Uhura huffs a sigh. “You know what I mean. Professor Tala could be a good person to have supporting you, and you have the grades to get her on your side. I’m sure you could do it. You’ve charmed Pike, somehow. The world seems incapable of resisting you, God knows why. You might as well use it.”

His expression grows as serious as she’s ever seen it. “You want me to suck up to someone like Tala for my own benefit?”

“You could do it,” Uhura says weakly, feeling again like her foundations are shifting.

“She’s a power-hungry, petty autocrat. You heard how she treated the rest of the class today. She’s so desperate for respect that she’d fail half the class before admitting that her teaching method needs work,” Kirk says, jabbing a finger back at the classroom. “You want to know why I talk back to her? Because I can. Because someone should. Everyone one else is too afraid for their grade to push her off her throne, but I’m not.”

Suddenly, Kirk’s place in command track doesn’t seem so unreasonable. Still, she pushes down the swell of respect that bubbles inside her. He’s just being dramatic—it’s an absurdly noble speech for the middle of a crowded hallway. She sniffs. “She’s just a bad teacher, Kirk.”

“If she bullies her students like this, can you imagine what she would be like if she got more power?” Kirk asks.

Uhura, surprising herself, hums thoughtfully.

“I need to head to my next class,” Kirk says, and when he winks it’s as though his serious expression was never there. “I wasn’t kidding about being your study buddy, you know.”

“In your dreams,” she says, but she’s suppressing a laugh.

#

Despite the chaos that lands Kirk in the captain’s chair, he does a great job.

He’s as clever as ever, but he’s stopped hiding behind a mask of indolence and smarm—unless he’s manipulating some warlord or pompous alien king. Aside from his ‘meetings’ with McCoy on Friday nights, Uhura never seems him drunk. (And even then, the one time he was called from one of those meetings for an emergency on the bridge, he worked through the haze of alcohol with the skill of practice.) Though flirtation drops from his lips as naturally as breathing, he never sleeps with his crew.

That last part, however, is not from lack of trying on the part of certain crew members.

Uhura is scrolling through her PADD, waiting for the full number of her Communications team to assemble for their weekly meeting. Uhura may lead the team, but it’s a group effort. She’s proud to say that her team has the best translators and code-breakers in the ‘Fleet. Half of that is due to the draw of Starfleet’s prize flagship, but the other half is due to her own teaching. She makes sure that her team is constantly learning new languages, experimenting with new translation softwares, and fully informed of the local customs for every planet they stop on.

They tend to be calm and professional, vital skills for the Communications sector, so her ears tune in when one of her ensigns starts to whine during the pre-meeting chatter. As Isia is speaking in her native Bolian, ‘whine’ is literal.

“…can’t believe I let you talk me to into that. It was humiliating,” Isia is saying to her companion, a clever Romulan Uhura had swiped from the Science track a few months earlier.

“I can’t believe he said no! You’re sure you made it clear that you, you know?”

Isia sighs and waves a hand. “Bolians aren’t subtle, remember? Why dance around it? I went to his quarters, and when he opened the door, I said, ‘Captain, we should have sex.’”

Uhura choked on her inhale, and had to cover her mouth to keep from coughing out loud. She kept her eyes firmly on her PADD, though she’d stopped reading a single word.

“And he said no?”

“He said no!”

“Did he say _why_? You’re gorgeous?”

“Thank you!” Isia exclaims. “He said he was flattered, but that he doesn’t think it’s appropriate for him to sleep with his crewmembers. I told him it wasn’t against protocol—I figured he might not know?—but he said it was his own rule. He doesn’t want anyone to feel pressured because of his authority.”

“Please tell me you pointed out that you were the one approaching him.”

“Of course,” Isia says. “He just said that it didn’t matter.”

“So what did you do?”

“I left,” Isia says, shrugging. “I was embarrassed, and I’m not going to push someone who says no. I mean, he couldn’t have been more clear. Do you think he was telling the truth? Or was it just me?”

Another ensign, who had clearly been eavesdropping along with Uhura, leans across the table. “Not just you,” he says conspiratorially. “I tried a few months ago.”

“Really?” Isia says, halfway between reassured and intrigued.

Now that Uhura thinks about it, Kirk’s refusal to sleep with his crew makes sense. After he’d shown his condescension for every authority figure they’d ever shared—apart from Pike—it would make sense that the competitive Kirk would make it his missions not to repeat their mistakes.  

The other ensign nods. “I got the same speech,” he tells her. “Like, the exact same speech. I’m thinking maybe he’s given it more than once.”

“I can’t blame them,” Isia says. “He’s so hot. Probably the hottest human I’ve ever seen.”

And that is where Uhura has to draw the line. She might be curious about Kirk’s activities, but she doesn’t need to hear her assistants drooling over him. She stands up, drawing their attention to her. “Hello, everyone,” she says. “Let’s get started.”

#

There are times that Alpha shift stretches far beyond their planned work hours. The command team scrambles for three hours after they’re all supposed to be off-shift, caught up in making emergency repairs to the ship while Uhura desperately negotiates with the pirates who shot on them in the first place. For a few hours there, Uhura thought that they had reached the end of the Enterprise, but things had fallen into place by the end. The pirates had slipped into the black, assured by Uhura that they would be rewarded for their mercy by the Federation. Kirk, Scotty, and Spock had done engineering magic to keep the ship floating. Sulu had managed to plot a safe course out of the asteroid belt, free from further damage.

The entire command team is giddy with their miraculous success as they stumble into the mess hall. It’s an odd time of day, and they’re the only ones in the room. Beta shift has been working for hours, though had only just relieved them on the bridge. The rest of the crew is asleep, exhausted from the emergency work.

After they’ve all collected their meal of choice from the replicators, they pull up chairs so they can all squeeze around the same table. They don’t always eat together, and rarely as a full crew, but none of them are eager to leave the others behind just yet.

There are bonds forged in the middle of a fight for your life, and Uhura has cemented those ties tenfold with these men.

Uhura sat between Spock and Scotty, which Kirk across the table. Despite their exhaustion, the team is boisterous throughout the meal. Uhura leans into Spock, his steadiness a reassurance in the heady atmosphere.

Chekov, despite his youth, is the first to yawn, stretching his arms over his head. “I’m sorry,” he says, accent thick with exhaustion. “I need to go to sleep.”

“Boo,” Sulu says, but he sounds tired too. He’s propping his chin on one fist as he eats his soup.

Chekov gives him an indulgent apology and starts to stand, tray in hand.

“Hey, wait—aren’t you going to finish that?” Kirk asks, reaching out to stop Chekov from taking the tray to the trash. Chekov has finished his bowl of borscht, but there’s a pudding cup with one lone bit taken from the top at the edge of the tray.

“I’m too tired to be hungry,” Chekov admits. “My eyes were bigger than my stomach.”

“Well, you don’t need to throw away good food,” Kirk says, snagging the pudding cup and then waving with his spoon for Chekov to continue with his exit. Kirk has already polished his tray, but he digs into the pudding without hesitation.

Uhura sighs. Maybe their team is too comfortable with each other.

“Ach, Captain, I swear _your_ stomach is bigger than a supernova,” Scotty laughs. “Is there nothing you won’t eat?”

“Apparently I have a few limits. Bones has _some_ opinions on that subject,” Kirk says.

“You know,” Sulu says, eyes smiling though he keeps his mouth firm and serious, “back home we had a dog that we called Hoover. With him around, we didn’t need a vacuum—he’s pick up every crumb we left behind. You remind me of him, sir.”

“Woof,” Kirk says with a smirk, and takes an outrageously large bite of the pudding.

#

One of Uhura’s most important roles on the Enterprise is as the team’s translator when they beam down for diplomacy missions. Not only is Uhura skilled at nearly every known language, with the ability to pick up new ones quickly, she’s also undeniably the most _diplomatic_ of the command team.

Kirk can fake it, but he doesn’t always bother. McCoy actively insults nearly everyone they meet. And Spock, though she loves him, is too stiff and literal for most species. Uhura knows how to be gracious, and can hold a conversation in any language with any person.

Honestly, the Enterprise would be lost without her.

Tonight, they’re at a party being held in honor of the planet, Rosk, agreeing during negotiations yesterday to become a member of the Federation. She has to admit—it was Kirk’s clever arguments that won the day this time. He explained the real benefits of Rosk joining a coalition, though the planet is already prosperous on their own.

That prosperity is on full display tonight. The grand ballroom is gilded with sparkling opalesque gems that shine in the intimate lighting. So much food is piled on the tables circling the room’s perimeter that several plates have toppled into one another. The Roskins seems unconcerned by the mess—other than some of the younger members of the species, most seem uninterested in the food at all. They have plenty to waste as decoration here, as their harvest season is in full-swing.

There is a standing glass structure in the center of the room to make better use of the space while not minimizing the room’s vastness. On the upper level, one can look down and see the Roskins swirling below. They’re a beautiful species, not dissimilar to Earth’s brightly colored sea slugs, though nearly human in size. They ripple as they move through the air, which is denser than the atmosphere Uhura is used to, but still breathable. It reminds her of the foggiest days in San Francisco, when it felt as though she was walking through clouds to get to class.

Luckily, though not a member of the Federation until today, Rosk has been making their money through trade with them for long enough that some of them speak passable Standard. Their telepathy, stronger than almost any species Uhura has encountered before, helps even further. When the language barrier fails, they send bright pulses of emotions or memories into her brain.

It’s disconcerting but—at the risk of sounding like her boyfriend—fascinating. In many ways, that advantage has made their language much simpler than Standard. After all, there’s no need for fifteen words to describe happiness when one can push their current feelings directly into someone else’s head.

“Lieutenant Uhura,” says the ambassador, an agender Rosk named Pinf whose thin skin alternates between gold and purple in bold stripes. They have been the crew’s main point of contact outside of the actual negotiations, and has gone out of their way to make the humans comfortable on foreign soil.

“Pinf,” Uhura greets warmly. She’s on the upper floor, watching her crew mingle with the Roskins below. “This party is so beautiful. You’ve truly outdone yourselves on our behalf.”

“That is precisely what I wished to speak with you about,” Pinf says, their tendrils twisting anxiously in the air above their head, practically braiding themselves together. “I must apologize to your captain, and I was hoping you could advise me.”

Over the last three days, Uhura and Pinf had teamed up on occasion to wrangle their diplomatic teams. “Of course, but—apologize to Captain Kirk? Why?”

“We have upset him. It wasn’t our plan.”

Uhura looks down. Kirk is speaking amiably to some of the Roskins, including one of their queens. At first glance, he seems fine, but Uhura has known him for a long time, and Pinf is right—there’s a subtle tension to Kirk’s jaw that betrays his discomfort. No one outside of his command team should have been able to notice, but that was a flaw to negotiating with a telepathic race. Still, she smiles at Pinf. “I’m sure it was nothing you did.”

“It was,” Pinf insists. They’re pressing so close to Uhura that one of their skin flaps brushes against her sleeve. “I picked up a memory from him. He’s normally quite adept at controlling them, but this one was too strong for either of us to stop.” Pinf flutters again. “When we set up the buffet, we did not think of how it might look to those from a less fertile world. I should have realized that our waste would be upsetting.”

“The buffet,” Uhura repeats, trying to sound understanding. What had Pinf picked up from Kirk to make her think he would have a problem with their food display? Other than his notorious allergies, of course, but McCoy had done a thorough sweep ahead of time to flag anything Kirk shouldn’t touch.

“Well, yes,” Pinf says. “To us, the display is meant to show bounty. We have plenty, and our food is difficult to store and ship elsewhere if we do not use it within the first few days after harvest. However, for a survivor of the Tarsus IV colony…” Pinf ripples again, and then their crushing shame pierces Uhura’s mind.

It’s almost a welcome distraction from Uhura’s utter horror at the revelation. Luckily, Pinf is so focused on their own dismay that they haven’t noticed Uhura’s surprise. If they learn that they betrayed one of the captain’s secrets in trying to apologize to him, the anxious ambassador may twist themselves to pieces.  

Tarsus IV. Could that be true? It wasn’t possible, was it? There were only nine survivors of the Tarsus famine and subsequent massacre. Kirk would have been no more than fifteen at the time. She’d assumed that he’d been in Iowa his entire life before Starfleet.

Still…

Some of the survivors had been part of the famous children’s rebellion, and if there was anything that screamed of Jim Kirk, it was that brave group. And, even more damning, she’s learned that Roskins are too talented at telepathy to misinterpret something so vital.

Has Uhura ever really known Kirk at all?

“You know your captain best,” Pinf continues. “How should I make my apology?”

 “I…” Uhura gathers herself and pastes on a friendly smile. “The captain does not like to speak of that time,” she says, which is undeniably the truth. “I believe he would be more comfortable if you did not mention it at all. I can explain to him later that no offense was meant.”

“Oh, would you?” Pinf says, shoving a wave of relief into Uhura’s mind. “I do not wish to make the situation more painful for him.”

“Of course,” Uhura tells him, looking through the glass floor at her captain.

#

Uhura cries in her room that night.

Thanks for Roskin customs, she has a room away from Spock and the others. It was a sign of respect for her status as translator for the group that she found unnecessary at first, but she’s grateful now.

The more she thinks about this new information, the more it makes sense. Kirk’s fierce dedication to justice. His reaction to Professor Tala had seemed extreme at the time, but it was no wonder he has such skepticism toward authority—he had come of age under one of the most notorious dictators in modern history.

Does anyone else know? McCoy might. He’s been Kirk’s best friend for years, and is his doctor besides. Does Spock? Would he not have told her?

Then again, she’s not planning on telling him. It’s clear that Kirk has gone out of his way to keep this information private. The media across the galaxy was in a frenzy when the Tarsus story broke the first time around. The news that one of the survivors went on to save the universe would fuel them now for weeks.

He hasn’t even let it slip to his crew, who she knows he trusts not to reveal sensitive information to the public. For his own reasons, he wants his past kept quiet. Despite his gregarious personality, Kirk can be intensely private, and Uhura can only imagine the horrors he faced in his youth.

She promises herself that night that she will keep his secret, no matter what happens. There’s no need for anyone to know what she’s inadvertently learned, not even Kirk. After Pinf’s reaction earlier, she realizes that having at least one person on the diplomatic team ready to run interference without Kirk needing to know is the best gift she can give him.

There was no one to protect the children on Tarsus IV. But Uhura can help protect him now.

#

A month later, Uhura ends up at Kirk’s lunch table again with Scotty and Chekov while the rest of the command team is on the planet below for an away mission. Kirk is always tense when his crew goes on missions without him, but he’s still recovering from an injury from his last away mission. McCoy had threatened to tie him to the captain’s chair if he hadn’t let the team go down without him.

“Jesus, Chekov, again?” Kirk snaps when Chekov starts to stand up from the table. “Give it to me.”

Blushing, Chekov hands the slice of partially-eaten cake to Kirk. “Of course, Captain.”

“Come on, Captain,” Scotty drawls, shaking his head. “If you really wanted dessert, aren’t there better ways than scavenging off the kid’s plate?”

“You’re the Chief Engineer, Scotty,” Uhura interrupts. “Shouldn’t you be more aware that the replicator is a limited resource? Don’t you think we should make sure not to waste it, especially considering how much of the ship’s energy it drains?”

Scotty holds up his hands. “Fair enough, fair enough. Eat away, Captain.”

“I’m sorry,” Chekov says, still standing there. As always, his puppy-dog eyes are devastating. “I didn’t mean to waste food. I just wasn’t as hungry as I thought.”

“It’s fine,” Kirk says, deflating. He gives Chekov a reassuring smile.

“Just be more thoughtful next time,” Uhura chides, since Kirk clearly isn’t going to.

“I will,” Chekov says before finally escaping the table.

Kirk gives Uhura a considering look, hidden behind lazy, hooded lids. “I didn’t know you were so passionate about the ship’s resources,” he says.

“I do pay attention to our monthly reports, unlike some people,” she says primly, returning to her sandwich. She knows Kirk reads them too—he can recite any statistic off their internal records with almost as much accuracy as Spock can—but that’s not the point right now.

It works. He snorts and starts digging into the cake. “At least we know that if Spock and I kick it, someone knows how to work hard around here.”

“Oh, please,” she says. “I’m not waiting for you to die off so I can be captain. If I wanted to be captain, I already would be.”

“Says the girl who only got a 92 in Professor Tala’s Andorian 101 class,” Kirk teases.

“I’d think she was a monster even if she hadn’t broken my 4.0 that semester,” Uhura says with a shrug. “Her grades don’t count.”

“Sure they don’t,” Kirk says with false indulgence, and they settle back into their normal bickering.  


	3. Spock

It takes Spock far too long to put the pieces together.

Later, he will think that the only reason he does not know for far too long is not in spite of friendship with his captain, but because of it. Though the first day they meet nearly ends with Jim’s death at Spock’s hands, and the months after that are tense and—dare he say—awkward, but it does not take long beyond that for Jim to insert himself thoroughly into Spock’s life.

Jim seems to have come to the decision that he and Spock _will_ be friends, and Spock’s input on the matter is not needed.

Not only that, but Jim respects Spock’s work, naming him his XO despite the evidence of Spock’s recent emotional compromise. He asks for Spock’s input on all matters, which is what leads Spock to discover that Jim is quite brilliant in his own right. No imbecile could hold such complex conversations on quantum physics or the inner workings of the starship’s warp core. Jim may play at being simple on occasion, but an ulterior motive is always lurking in those cases.

After seeing countless Starfleet admirals and enemy leaders fall victim to Jim’s manipulations, Spock is sure never to underestimate him.

It never seems, however, as though Jim is interested in fooling him.

He’s open and friendly with Spock, even when the Vulcan is determined to maintain a professional distance between them. He’s undeterred by Spock’s demurrals to his invitations to watch holovids or eat together or spar. Though he never pushes the individual instances, accepting Spock’s answers for a short time, he is persistent and comes back with further invitations.

In the end, it is a request for a game of chess that finally lures Spock into socializing with his captain. And after that, Spock thinks that even a robot would not stand a chance against Jim’s determination.

Despite outward appearances, it is no hardship to accept the captain’s friendship. There is something…reassuring about Jim’s unwavering belief in Spock. Even when Spock is being uncharitable, or suppressing his humanity in favor of cold logic, Jim trusts that Spock’s intentions are better than they are. It makes Spock want to meet those expectations.

It’s illogical, of course. If the captain is overestimating Spock’s nobility, surely that is on Jim for being deliberately blind. Instead, Spock finds himself changing, questioning himself constantly so that if Jim does take his advice on a situation, they can both rest assured knowing it was truly the best option.

Over chess, Spock hears chatter about Jim’s life. The rambling is often centered around the Enterprise, bouncing from gossip about their crew to theories about upcoming missions. On later nights, when they’ve fallen into a match because neither of them can rest, Jim talks more about his life outside the ship—and Spock reciprocates.

Spock hears tales of Jim’s family: his lost father, his absent mother, his runaway brother, his harsh stepfather. Though Jim skims over his long litany of sexual conquests, he tells Spock entertaining tangential stories about his interactions with them outside the bedroom. To hear Jim speak, it’s a miracle of statistics that he is not dead or in jail, rather than captaining Starfleet’s flagship. Then again, Jim has a habit of defying the odds, and it’s more to do with his stubborn persistence and bold decision-making than anything as simple as luck.

All in all, Spock feels as though he _knows_ Jim by the time the first year of their mission comes to a close. Jim has secrets, of course, dark shadows that haunt him, but he’s been steadily sharing them with Spock over the last few months.

Spock feels certain that if there are any other secrets in Jim’s history, he’ll share them eventually. Jim is the one who insists they are friends, after all.

 #

Spock will never be the type of friend Jim is to him. He is not one for effusive shows of affection, or declarations of loyalty.

Instead, he finds himself giving Jim a larger percentage of his thoughts and attention than strictly warranted. Concern, no matter how illogical, floods him over relatively small dangers. When they go on missions together, Spock stations himself at Jim’s right, ready to fight any comers. (Despite Jim’s charms, aliens with weapons and a grudge against Starfleet seem almost magnetized to him.) When Jim is injured, Spock waits in the medical bay, which involves putting up with Doctor McCoy’s equally heightened anxiety.

And, he catalogs Jim’s actions. There’s a file in his mind on Jim, alongside the one on Uhura and his own father. (His mother’s is there too, a log of now-useless data about her favorite things.)

Patterns emerge, strange incidents that are not as isolated as he expects, and whose significance he doesn’t understand.

For example, Jim is…illogical about food. During stressful periods on the ship, when tensions are at their highest and everyone’s performance is under scrutiny, Spock notices that instead of ensuring a regular caloric intake, Jim will go largely without food until the situation is settled. He does not refuse food that is given to him, but he seems to forget that he is permitted to take breaks to pursue it on his own.

On a metabolic level, the approach makes no sense. With reduced sleep and increased stress, Jim’s body should require more food. Instead, Spock notes him bringing meals to the crew on duty, and ignoring his own needs. It is as though he is not thinking of himself at all.

When tensions settle and the ship is back to normal functioning, Jim overeats instead, nearly gorging himself on whatever he can find. Both patterns settle with time, and Jim’s body and mind seem to have taken no ill-effects, but Spock is still concerned. It can’t be a beneficial habit, and it may progress in severity if unmonitored.

Humans often have illogical reactions to stress. There is no need for Spock to chide Jim for something he likely does not realize is happening. However, that does not mean Spock must ignore it.

“Computer,” he says the night after he’s relatively sure that Jim has fallen back into normal parameters again after another stressful interlude, “make a note to track Captain Kirk’s caloric intake going forward, to end after a year’s time or when I give a contrary order. If his food consumption falls into an abnormal rhythm, within a 10% statistically significant range, send a silent alert to my PADD.”

“Doctor Leonard McCoy has requested this data, along with aberrational times in replicator access,” the computer reports back. “Would you like to add this parameter to your data collection?”

Doctor McCoy was tracking Jim’s food habits as well? Had he noticed Jim’s unusual habits as well, or was this another symptom of his usual paranoia?

“Keep my parameters as stated,” he says finally.

#

Jim looks at the PADD in his hand as they both stand outside of his room. “It says the last one is in here,” he says, though the blinking red dot is obvious. “How did it even get in there? My room has the best security on the ship.”

“The Enterprise’s security measures are meant to apply to humanoid attackers. They are not immune to airborne viruses, liquid flooding, or, it would seem, pest infestations,” Spock reported.

“Then we need to work on that,” Jim says. “After this, I’m going to want airtight living quarters.”

“The cost would be extravagant,” Spock muses, but he doesn’t disagree. After all, after the last week, Spock is tempted by the idea himself. The Enterprise is his home, and he dislikes his territory being invaded. It is a logical reaction—the home is where one is most vulnerable, and should be a place of safety.

It is also illogical—the Enterprise is a science vessel, rather than a home in the truest sense of the word.

Spock wonders whether his own reactions are rooted in logic or illogic, whether he is reacting appropriately or whether his human or pre-Surak Vulcan instincts are simply overwhelming him. He will have to meditate…once their living areas are secured.

“All right, Mr. Spock,” Jim says. “Let’s do this.”

By now, the procedure is routine. Jim goes in to scare the creature from its hiding place while Spock waits with the containment vessel to capture it.

Jim, as always, has a unique approach. He enters his room shouting what sounds like a war cry, waving his PADD over his head. He goes directly to where the tracker indicates the creature will be waiting, racing forward without fear. When his shouting does not flush the creature from its hiding place, he kicks over his short, standing dresser. The heavy piece of furniture hits the ground with a thunk, revealing the small, furry creature frozen behind it.

The tribble looks up from the protein bar it was devouring, and then bolts toward the open door.

“Spock!” Jim cries, but Spock is already in motion.

Deftly, he slams the containment vessel over the fleeing creature. There is a quiet thunk as it runs into it from the inside, making the cage shudder in Spock’s hands. He keeps his grip firm, and presses the button to seal the open bottom.

When he lifts it, the tribble is safely enclosed inside.

“Good work, Mr. Spock!” Jim says. “That’s the last of them!”

Spock sets the container down on the floor and joins Jim by the fallen dresser, scanning the ground and wall. “It doesn’t seem as though this one managed to have any offspring before its capture. We should be fully contained now. We’ll need to do another sweep of the ship, but it seems unlikely we have missed any additional interlopers.” He frowns at the shredded protein bar. The marks in the wrapper are consistent with the tribbles’ previous meals, but it’s larger than he had expected. It is the type of ration bar they send on missions, high in calories and nutrients. “It seems unlikely that the tribble was able to drag this into your room, considering its size.”

“It was already in here,” Jim says with a shrug, righting the dresser. He opens the bottom drawer to reveal several rows of protein bars. The back of the drawer has been chewed through by small teeth. “Damn,” he says. “These are probably contaminated.”

“You keep an entire drawer of rations in your dresser?” Spock confirms.

“I _did_ ,” Jim grumbles, knocking the drawer closed with his foot.

“Captain,” Spock says, and he doesn’t sigh, “you realize that it is highly illogical to keep food in your room, don’t you? Even if we did not have tribbles on the loose, you have an en-suite replicator. It is fortunate that this is the first pest problem you’ve encountered.”

“They’re sealed,” Jim says. “If tribbles didn’t have those ridiculous noses, they wouldn’t have found them. Those things stay good for years.”

“Yes, but you should not have them here in the first place. Is your replicator unreliable?” Spock was reasonably sure it was not. Only two weeks ago they had used the machine to synthesize a meal to go along with their chess match in Jim’s rooms.

“Aren’t all replicators?” Jim asks.

Spock is silent, staring at him curiously.

Jim shrugs. “Replicators only work if there’s matter around to synthesize into something new. If we ever ran out of supplies, they wouldn’t have anything do draw from.”

“So you hoard food in here to…” Not to save himself. Spock knows Jim too well to accuse him of that.

“Safekeeping,” Jim says with a stubborn tilt to his chin. Spock has seen it often. “Just in case.”

“We have emergency rations stored in the storage areas,” Spock reminds him.

“Just in case,” Jim repeats, and then walks over to scoop up the tribble. “Come on. Let’s return this little monster to its friends.”

#

The next day, Spock leaves an airtight container outside of Jim’s door, one just small enough to fit inside the bottom drawer of his dresser.

#

The statistical likelihood of a mission going quite this poorly is below 15%, and though Spock is used to his crew defying odds, he wishes they were defying them in the opposite direction.

They’ve lost two crew members already, security officers who had fallen to enemy gunfire before they could make their retreat. It had been distressing to leave their bodies behind. Though their consciousness was gone, all species have important rituals surrounding death. The crew and their families will have to complete them without their bodies on hand.

Jim, Spock, Sulu, the remaining security officer and the ensign from the science division fled the small settlement where the trap had been sprung, and are now deep in the desert. There was no survival if they had stayed within sight of the settlement, but their odds are only marginally better where they’ve ended up. Though Spock’s skin welcomes the dry heat of the desert, his companions—all human—will already be feeling the sun’s effects.

Their hosts had not attempted to kill them until after the crew had settled into their guest suites, leaving their supplies behind so that they would not offend the locals at the dinner meant to celebrate them. Instead, they’d nearly been massacred, and had left with only their uniforms.

Each of them have tried their comms to contact the Enterprise multiple times each, but the signal is being blocked. For now, they are on their own.

The crew have all followed Spock’s advice and pulled off the top layer of their uniform shirts, wrapping their heads in Starfleet colors, while the skin of their torsos was protected from the sun by their black undershirts.

“Won’t this make us hotter?” asks the security officer, tugging at his red turban doubtfully.

“Sunburn is the biggest threat,” the science ensign, May, says before Spock can explain. “This will keep as much sun off your face as possible.”

“We should continue walking,” Spock says. “We don’t know whether the comm signals are being blocked by something in the settlement we left, or if there is a forcefield around the planet. For now, our best chance for survival will be to walk until our crew finds us, or we escape the range of the interference.”

May shows visible signs of anxiety, though she is attempting to hide them. “Should we be walking during the sunlight? Isn’t it better to wait until night?”

“We’re not far enough from the settlement to be certain our attackers will not follow us,” Spock says. “We will walk carefully, and remain hydrated. We all have the water packs in our belts. We will easily be able to convert plant life into sufficient water, if the atmosphere does not provide enough. We will replenish the sweat we lose during walking. The benefits outweigh the consequences.”

May nods, fiddling with the small pouch on her belt. Activated as soon as they’d realized there was an emergency retreat in progress, the pouch would be drawing moisture from the air around them already. Once they find a supply of the desert’s plant life, the pouches will be able to draw up to a quart of water, entirely dehydrating the plant to pull all water out.

The desiccated plants will be a trail if someone is following them, but it is better than the alternative.

Jim waits until the rest of the crew has started forward before he falls into step beside Spock at the rear of the group. “This is bad,” he says quietly.

“It is not optimal,” Spock agrees.

“Maybe we should turn around,” Jim says. “A clean phaser shot would be kinder.”

Spock glances over at Jim, whose expression is deadly serious. Surely he is exaggerating. “Captain, that seems quite unnecessary. The situation is difficult, but not dire yet. We have successfully survived far worse circumstances. We’ve escaped our pursuers, we will likely escape the interference preventing us from calling the ship, and we have a steady water supply.”

“But we don’t have any food,” Jim hisses. “All our rations were in our packs, and we don’t know if what’s in this desert—if we even find anything—will poison us. None of us had a bite of lunch before they started attacking us.”

“The average human can survive twenty-one days without food. In this heat, that length may be cut down, perhaps as low as fourteen days, but if we maintain our current pace, we can get a hundred miles from the settlement in that time.”

“We won’t be able to walk as fast when we’re dying,” Jim tells him. “I give us two days before the hunger starts impacting our speed, and a week before we’re barely able to move at all. How far will that get us?”

“Historically speaking, the Enterprise is efficient enough to find us well within that time frame, even if we do not move outside of the interference’s range,” Spock tells him.

“They won’t even realize anything is wrong for at least another six hours,” Jim snaps. “Even if they figure out what happened at the settlement and that some of us escaped, they’ll have no clue which direction to start searching. This desert is huge, Spock, and they can’t reach our comms. Walking into the desert is death, just as sure as walking back into that settlement. I can’t watch that.”

Jim is overreacting. Violently overreacting.

“Captain,” Spock begins, but Jim whirls on him.

“My crew is _not_ going to starve,” he snarls. “Not on my watch.”

Ah.

The data Spock has been compiling for more than a year clicks into place, answering a question he had not yet asked.

Humans tend to react negatively when they are thrust into a situation with which they have previous negative experience. As the Enterprise crew has never lost anyone to starvation, Jim’s panic must stem from an experience from before his time with Starfleet. An experience so extreme that it came overcome even Jim’s optimistic bravery.

An experience that would lead him to eat irregularly, and hoard rations in his own quarters.

Spock has never met another survivor of a famine, but he’s seen trauma. He may have difficulties in understanding the complexities of emotions, but he knows his captain. His friend.

“Jim,” Spock says, and his use of Jim’s first name draws his attention. “If we do not manage to contact the Enterprise in the next twenty-four hours, we can alter the plan to prioritize our long-term survival. For the moment, attempting to reach the Enterprise is top priority.” Spock meets his eyes, making sure Jim is listening to him. “None of us is starving yet, Jim.”

Jim is so tense that his hands are trembling.

“We do not need to panic at this point. I estimate that there is a 70% chance that we will be able to use our comms and call for help by nightfall. And if not—we’ve all weathered worse than this, have we not?”

Jim nods. He clears his throat and looks to the horizon. “Very good, Mr. Spock.”

“Our crew relies on your leadership,” Spock presses carefully.

“I’m fine, Spock,” Jim says, and he takes a slow, deep breath. “You’re right. Let’s push forward. We’ll get in touch with the Enterprise soon.”

#

Spock’s calculations had been right. Just as the sun began to set, a series of beeps alert them that their comms are back online, and that they each had missed a series of calls from the Enterprise.

Voice calm and cheerful, Jim places a call to Scotty to request to be beamed up. Relief clear in his tone, Scotty agrees.

On the Enterprise, Jim pauses by Spock before they leave the transporter pad. “Thank you,” he says quietly.

Spock nods solemnly, and Jim claps him on the shoulder before moving forward.

#

Tarsus IV.

Spock does additional research, and meditates on his discoveries deep into the night, despite his exhaustion. To his surprise, he is experiencing emotions beyond sorrow and concern for his captain. Vulcans and humans both have a long legacy of territorialism, and there is a layer of covetousness to his reaction to Jim’s secret.

He had believed they were friends. Why had Jim not entrusted him with this information? It’s information Spock needs as his First Officer, and wishes he had had as Jim’s friend. His own reaction to Jim’s hoarded food shames him now, and he is certain he will recall other instances of unwise comments in light of this revelation.

McCoy has been tracking Jim’s food intake for the last year at least. Did Jim tell him, or did he guess on his own? Spock suspects the former. Though McCoy is more clever than Spock likes to admit, he doubts the doctor could have uncovered something more quickly than Spock had.  

He takes a deep breath and centers himself again. His reaction is illogical. Jim does not owe him his secrets, and he should not be surprised that Jim kept this from everyone. Jim has always loathed seeming vulnerable, and from his reaction today, his time on Tarsus is still difficult for him to process.

Additionally, Jim has always hated the fame of his tragic birth. It is no surprise he does not want the fame of the Tarsus IV tragedy attached to his legacy as well.

It is, perhaps, a sign of their friendship that Jim revealed his unsteadiness during their mission. If Spock had not been there, Jim would not have leaned upon anyone else, and may have pursued his instincts toward overreaction.

Even if Jim will not tell Spock of his past, he relies on Spock to stabilize him now.  

Jim had quickly recovered from his panic during the mission and had pushed onward to lead their team through the desert, but Spock must contemplate the best ways to prevent a repeat of such an event in the future.

Just before dawn, he pulls up the standard-issue belt schematics on his PADD, dimming the light so as not to wake Uhura. Surely he can find a space for a compressed rations bar in the belt so that no crew is left with no source of food.

He works on his new project until Alpha shift begins.


	4. Epilogue

It’s supposed to be a milk run.

They’re in orbit around Raas XI. It’s a Class M planet, inhabited by a pre-warp race of small creatures that look like dog-sized hamsters with purple fur. The plan was to observe the planet from above long enough to gather an understanding of the surface before sending a small away team to gather samples of the planet’s unique flora before slipping away without compromising the Prime Directive.

They’ve been overhead for two days now, and Jim has already seen a few blurry photos of the initial scans. The purple hamsters are clever, but primitive—on their current track, it will probably be another five hundred years until they reach warp.

If they survive that long.

Spock is presenting the final report to the command team in Jim’s ready room, projecting all the data they’ve observed from orbit over the table. His expression is grave before he starts, and Jim is immediately nervous. What did it take to make  _Spock_  uneasy?

It turns out: a famine.

The alien race is vegetarian, and a disease has decimated their crop—along with most of the natural flora on their continent. Their island continent is small, and is only separated from the dense jungles of the rest of the planet by a few miles. The disease hasn’t crossed the water yet, but neither have the hamsters. According to the science team, their technology is nowhere near water transportation yet, and their species seems incapable of swimming.

They’re surrounded by food, but they have no way to reach it.

From the photos, the famine’s effects are starting to take hold of the population. There are photos, taken from above by the Enterprise’s advanced cameras. There are many dead, and the survivors are gaunt. For some, their fur has begun falling out.

Jim’s hands are shaking, and he can’t stay in this room. He can’t watch this happen.

He stands up. Spock is already looking at him. “Spock,” he breathes.

Spock doesn’t chide him for interrupting before the presentation was finished. “I know, Captain.”

“We can’t— I can’t…”

“I know, Captain.”

Jim runs his hands through his hair and points at the photos still hanging over the table. “Please tell me you’re not going to end this presentation by talking about the Prime Directive,” he says, almost pleading.

“This species is barely more advanced than the first human hunter-gatherers,” Spock says. What’s unspoken is clear—Spock doesn’t need to talk about the Prime Directive. It could not more obviously apply. Starfleet is forbidden from interfering on a planet like this.

According to the rules, they’re supposed to leave and let the entire species starve to death rather than expose them to technology that would change the course of their history. It would take less than a day for the crew to transport the entire surviving population across the ocean to the fertile lands. And doing so would get Jim court-martialed.

“Captain,” Spock begins, but Jim cuts him off.

“You said yourself that they’re smart. That they’d get there eventually,” Jim says. He’s nearly shouting. “They need the chance, Spock. They could join the Federation someday. Fuck, I don’t even care about that. They’re still sentient creatures, and they’re dying  _right now_. I don’t care if they stay cavemen forever. They don’t deserve to die like this. No one deserves to die like this.”

He stares at the photos, but they disappear from the table as Spock recalls them to his PADD.

Jim whirls on Bones, who doesn’t often attend these meetings but came at Spock’s request. “How much longer do they have?”

“Based on that data?” There is no humor in Bones’s expression. “A week. Maybe two.”

Fuck.

Jim knows what it will look. He knows how it would have looked for the first deaths, and he knows how it will look for the last. The first to die were lucky, in a way. They likely succumbed to disease rather than starvation itself, too weak to fight the elements without a full diet. The others are holding on. They’ll waste away.

No one is coming to save them. They’ll all die, weak and scared and alone.

“Jim, look at me,” Bones says, and he’s suddenly standing in front of Jim. “Breathe, Jim.”

Jim hadn’t realized that he is hyperventilating. He’s in front of his crew. He needs to get a grip.

But he can’t stop. He can’t catch his breath.

“Damn it, Jim,” Bones growls, and then there’s a hypo jabbing into Jim’s neck. Now that’s a familiar sensation. Oxygen floods hsi body, forcing him to take a deep breath in. His head is clearer, but his thoughts are still tripping quickly away from him.

“Breathe, damn it,” Bones presses.

“Captain,” Spock says. “Take another breath. McCoy seems eager to stab you again.”

Jim takes another deep breath.

“Oh, you listen to the hobgoblin instead of your doctor,” Bones grouses, but he sounds relieved.

“You’re always bossing me around,” Jim says, the retort tripping off his tongue. At least this is still the same, though the world seems to be falling away from him. “When Spock tells me to do something, he usually means it.”

“I always mean it,” McCoy insists.

Slightly most stable, Jim looks around and realizes most of the command team has left the room. When did they slip out—and who told them to go? Only Jim, Bones, Spock, and, unexpectedly, Uhura remain.

“Captain, you need to listen to me,” Spock says, and Jim slashes a hand through the air.

“Shut up. We can’t abandon these people. We can’t let them die. I don’t give a fuck what Starfleet says. This isn’t the first time that Starfleet’s orders are to turn their back on a world that is dying, but I don’t have to obey them.” Kodos had called for help, back on Tarsus. No one had come. “We’re here. We can help. If you try to stop me, I’ll throw you in the brig. I’ll arrest the entire command crew if I have to. You can’t stop me.”

“Captain, calm down,” Spock says, but this time Jim won’t listen.

“No,” he snarls. “This isn’t something you can logic me out of. You don’t  _understand_ , Spock.”

“I do,” Spock says simply.

“You  _don’t_!” Jim says. “You can’t. This isn’t something I can turn my back on. Fuck, this isn’t something I can be neutral about. Maybe you would recuse yourself, but I won’t. God, I’m not making any sense. This is something I have to do. I don’t expect you to understand it.” He looks around at his crew, his team, his family, and takes a sharp breath. “I was on Tarsus IV.”

He expects the world to collapse around him, but it doesn't. They're just words, loud in the quiet room.

Spock doesn’t blink. “I know, Jim,” he says.

Jim stops short like he’s just run into a wall. He looks around the room again, but Uhura and Bones just look sad—not surprised.

“You knew?” he asks. “You all knew?”

“I figured it out several months ago. It was obvious to me that Doctor McCoy was also aware.” He looks at Uhura, and they seem to have a silent conversation composed entirely of eyebrow raising. “I did not realize Nyota was also aware until today.”

“I didn’t know you knew either,” she says primly. She turns to Jim. What he feared most—pity, patronization—are absent from her expression. There’s just the same compassion she’s had for him since they’d moved from annoyed bickering to friendly bickering. “I don’t think you should recuse yourself, Captain. I think you’re making the right choice. We’re not Starfleet if we don’t save these people.” She moves to stand beside him, facing her boyfriend with him.

“You know I can’t let anyone die on my watch,” Bones says, folding his arms.

“I’m emotionally compromised,” Jim says quietly. He can’t believe all three of them know. He has always assumed that if any of his crew learned that he was a survivor of the famine that led to Kodos’s massacre on Tarsus IV that they would question his ability to lead, or treat him as though he were broken. But this is his crew—these are his friends—and they’ve never doubted him, though they apparently have all known his past for a long time.

If they had fought him, he would have claimed that he was only doing what he had to do, but they’re on his side. They should know that he’s not able to be objective about this.

“If you weren’t upset, you wouldn’t be human,” Uhura says. “We’re on your side. We would tell you if you were acting irrationally. Believe me when I say that this is the right choice. We have to save this planet.”

All three of them look to Spock, who raises an eyebrow. “You seem to be expecting an argument.”

“You usually give me one,” Jim points out.

Spock just presses the clicker in his hand, reactivating the presentation over the table. He skips to the final slide rapidly, which shows a schematic for transporting the aliens with the least amount of contact. It still violates the Prime Directive—they will be forced to meet at least one Starfleet member, and will be introduced to technology beyond anything their planet has dreamed of before—but it’s the least invasive plan Jim can imagine working.

“ _You_  were going to suggest breaking the Prime Directive?” Jim asks, turning to his First Officer.

“Starfleet has rules for a reason,” Spock says dryly. “They have captains rather than artificial intelligence running their ships because sometimes the rules need to be broken.”

“Tell me someone recorded that,” Bones mutters.

“Is this the time?” Uhura asks Bones, sighing.

Spock gives Bones a flat stare. “I am not a slave to Starfleet,” he says. “Besides, I have worked with this crew long enough to know the decision that would be made even if I had not agreed. I thought it better to come here with an optimal plan rather than inviting a debate.”

“Because you know about…” Jim can’t make himself say the name.

“Because I know you,” Spock corrects. “You will never turn your back on someone in need. No matter the circumstances, you would not allow a civilization to die. No one on this crew would.” He tilts his head. “Including myself.”

“All right, then,” Jim says, a fierce grin unfurling on his lips. “Let’s save this planet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! This is a close look at one of the many facets of Jim's personality, but I'm hoping to write more in the future. I love this crew. 
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr](http://starknjarvis27.tumblr.com/)!

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from [“At a potato digging”](http://blogs.evergreen.edu/ireland1314/poems/at-a-potato-digging/) by Seamus Heaney
> 
> Let the record show that I ship every combination of Bones, Spock, and Jim, but I didn’t think a romantic arc would fit what I wanted from this story. I plan on writing more in this fandom, though!
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr](http://starknjarvis27.tumblr.com/)!


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